Daily Archives: August 14, 2008

Mauk has sued the NCAA over its refusal to grant him a sixth year of eligibility. Best of all, he’s gotten a sympathetic judge to issue a restraining order prohibiting the NCAA from stopping him from practicing with Cincinnati. Hey, if the judge refuses to hold a hearing on this until next January, Mauk is home free.

If that works, maybe Herschel could sue to get his last year of eligibility back.

In an unprecedented deal between a national network and a college athletic conference, the SEC and CBS on Thursday announced that they have agreed to a 15-year contract extension to televise that league’s football and men’s basketball games. Financial details of the deal were not released.

Barnhart isn’t using the word “unprecedented” lightly. As he notes,

This 15-year deal is believed to be the longest in the history of college sports.

That’s longer than CBS’ March Madness deal! Needless to say, I can’t wait to see the numbers on this baby. And at least we don’t have to worry about Fox mucking up SEC broadcasts for a while.

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UPDATE:Will Collier doesn’t see this as a good development. I’m not sure I agree with his pessimism totally. Certainly some of what he bitches about would be inevitable regardless of whom the SEC cut a broadcast deal with; it’s part of the territory.

Alabama now has only 82 players on scholarship, according to a report from Rivals. According to the report, Alabama football player Sam Burnthall, a junior defensive back, has left the team. This leaves Alabama with 82 players on scholarship. The NCAA limit is 85. Those scholarships could be given to walkon players, or saved for use in the future.

It started with this post over at The Joe Cribbs Car Wash about Auburn’s “Spread Eagle” (ugh) vs. Tennessee’s “Clawfense” (which sounds clever only if you’re a UT fan): dueling offensive nicknames!

Well, they’ve upped the ante considerably over at Third Saturday in Blogtober, with this post christening several of the offenses in the SEC with nicknames. It’s funny. It’s funny enough that I laughed at the reference to Georgia’s offense being run out of the “DU-I formation”. Take a look and offer your own suggestions.

… A.S.U. marks Erickson’s third Pac-10 coaching stop, following two years at Washington State (1987-88 ) and four years at Oregon State (1999-2002). A coaching vagabond, Erickson has been a head coach for nine different teams, seven on the college level and two separate N.F.L. stops. In the college ranks, in addition to W.S.U. and Oregon State he has spent at least one year at Idaho (1982-85, 2006), Wyoming (1986), Miami (1989-1994) and now A.S.U. (2007-present); as a pro head coach, Erickson spent four years with the Seattle Seahawks (1995-98 ) and two with the 49ers (2003-4).

Compared to that, Bobby Petrino’s career is but a pale imitation. Bouncing around or not, the thing we shouldn’t forget is that Erickson can coach on the college level. He’s got two national title rings and is the only coach who’s ever been named the Pac-10 coach of the year at three different schools.

As for his charges, that’s more of a mixed bag. There are certainly good to great skill position players on offense, some good defensive linemen and a couple of secondary players of note. But that offensive line, oh boy.

Even in a best case, The Quad doesn’t see the Sun Devils taking the Dawgs this year.

… Georgia is still a prime national-title contender, but I no longer consider the Dawgs the favorite. Either Ohio State or Oklahoma will move to No. 1 when I release my initial power rankings Aug. 26. I’ll have to give it some serious thought.

What’s caused the pullback? Trinton Sturdivant’s knee, baby.

… Besides quarterback, there is arguably no more important position on a football team than that of the guy protecting the QB’s blind side. In Georgia’s case in particular, I would argue that only QB Matthew Stafford and RB Knowshon Moreno were more irreplaceable.

Keep in mind that while we love him, Sturdivant wasn’t on the horizon for the SEC coaches when they selected their preseason all-SEC teams. He didn’t even make third team. Yet now, according to Mandel, his injury “towers over the others in terms of potential national implications”. Whoa, mama.

While I think that Jeremy Crabtree overstates things when he writes that the SEC “always has been a hotbed for the top passers” – this season being a good example of that not being a likely case – there’s no question that this is impressive:

When Frisco (Texas) Centennial four-star quarterback Ryan Mossakowski committed to Kentucky late last week, it gave the conference commitments from five of the top 10 pro-style passers in the nation.

Among dual-threat quarterbacks, the conference has commitments from the No. 1, No. 11 and No. 12 players at the position. The headliner is LSU commitment Russell Shepard, the nation’s top dual-threat player and No. 4 prospect overall.

Quote Of The Day

“Being a student at Georgia and playing ball, I’ve definitely grown, widened my horizons and experienced things I never thought I would. I feel like I’ve grown on and off the field, and the university prepared me for that. I’ve done some awesome things and met some awesome people. I’ll definitely be back to finish my schoolwork, because that was a big priority for me and my family and weighed heavily on my decision. I know football won’t last forever. It’ll be great to come back and get that degree, so I can tell my kids about it one day.” — Roquan Smith, AJ-C, 3/7/18